For those who look at life from a religious or spiritual viewpoint, this is obvious. For others, especially those having a scientific or technical viewpoint, this might be provocative, even contentious. The key to reconciling these viewpoints is the phenomenon called consciousness.

Like fishes in water, we swim in an ocean of mental experiences, such as sensations, emotions, and memories. Consciousness is all of a person’s mental experiences, moment by moment. It is so pervasive that we seldom notice it — until we lose it. Did you ever wake up after a sound sleep with the impression that you turned out the light a moment ago, only to look at the clock and find many hours had elapsed? Consciousness is what for many hours you did not have.

Scientists can and do study the physical correlates of experiences, and they study people’s reports about experiences. But scientists cannot study consciousness itself — at least not by any methods that today are considered “scientific.” For an explanation of this important assertion, please see the Consciousness tab.

There is another realm inaccessible to science that many people believe exists, namely the realm of the spiritual. Preachers and religious laity speak of spiritual entities and experiences on the basis of anecdotal reports and personal beliefs. Even distinguished scientists have written of their spirituality [refs], nurtured by their sense of wonder from scientific explorations, but nevertheless based on personal beliefs. For elaboration what is meant here by the spiritual realm, please see the Spirituality tab.

So we have two realms on which science is silent: the mental and the spiritual. What if they were one and the same? For me, consciousness — the realm of mental experiences — certainly exists, as I hope the reader will come to agree. Then if mental and spiritual are the same, the spiritual realm certainly exists. We could move beyond faith and belief. We would know the spiritual is real with the same certainty we know the mental is real.

Support for the premise that mind is spirit — that the mental and spiritual are one — will be circumstantial and inductive. To the extent that life’s mysteries seem more understandable under this premise, the premise itself is supported. Most of this site is devoted to the explanatory power of the idea that mind is spirit.